What's on at Air Force Museum of New Zealand
Latest from the museum
Latest Exhibition
Victory!
It is 80 years since the end of the Second World War.
Our Victory exhibition, upstairs in the atrium, marks this significant milestone in world history, and the story of the RNZAF.
Victory includes images and memories of Victory in Europe (VE) Day and Victory over Japan (VJ) Day which have been sourced from photographs, letters, postcards and personal histories in our collection.
Victory includes insights into how Kiwis celebrated, and how they felt.
Many found it difficult to rejoice after so much loss and suffering.
You’re welcome to come along and learn all about the end of World War Two with us.
Exhibition
The Mighty Hercules
The Mighty Hercules exhibition is on in the Cochrane Gallery upstairs in our atrium. Come and visit and learn all about this extraordinary aircraft.
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Update
Overseas visitor charge
A $15 entry charge was introduced for all international visitors to the Air Force Museum of New Zealand from 31 March 2025. Tickets available online or from our Welcome Desk on arrival.
The charge is required to cover rising costs and to contribute to our new $20 million extension to house the newest members of our collection – our historic Hercules and Orion aircraft.
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Our Aircraft
Explore AircraftMore to explore
MUSEUM ORIGINAL: Warrant Officer (retired) Dave Mitchell dropped by yesterday, and the aircraft engineer extraordinaire he made a beeline for his RNZAF favourite – the mighty North American Harvard.
Dave was 17 when he joined the RNZAF at Taieri in 1959 and, apart from one small break in the late 1960s, clocked up a total of 36 years in the RNZAF.
Aside from a 2.5-year break as a civilian, Dave’s engineering career was spent in the RNZAF and he was in charge of our workshop team when the museum was established in 1987.
He specialised in airframes, and worked on Vampires, Tiger Moths, Devons, Canberras and Airtrainers. His postings included Taieri, Wigram, Wellington and Ohakea.
The aircraft he worked on most – and has the most affection for – is the mighty North American Harvard.
The Harvard was the backbone of the RNZAF training fleet when Dave joined, and the air force operated 202 of the trainers from 1941 until they retired in 1971.
“It’s the aircraft I have spent the most time on and I liked working on American aircraft because they were quite basic in some ways and everything was easy to access,’’ he says.
After he retired Dave learned to fly and became a flying instructor, and he is still flying today.
“I’ve been interested in aircraft since I was about nine years old and it has always been a passion I guess you’d say. Anything to do with flying fascinates me.’’
Thanks for visiting your museum Dave and thanks for all your years of service.
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Harvard was retired in 1977
I share Dave’s love of the Harvard. Still my favourite also.
That’s a very smart looking Harvard
Great to see this. I greatly enjoyed working with Dave on Historic Flight for a few of those 36 years. A true gentleman and very accomplished ‘framie’.
WE KNOW WHAT YOU'RE THINKING! Once your C-130H Hercules (also known as Charles) landed last year, how the devil did you fit in your hanger?
The answer is a little bit of tail up down and turnaround work, performed magnificently by our friends from Airbus at Woodbourne.
Charles is safely tucked up for conservation. Over the past 12 months we’ve been working hard to find the money to build a new exhibition space for our Hercules and our other national treasure, our P-3K2 Orion NZ4203.
You can learn all about the project here: airforcemuseum.co.nz/home-for-heroes
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Well done NZ unlike RAAF Museum thank his let our large birds stay out side and corrode and rot away like the C-130A and others.
You all do a fantastic job!!!
I have personally been involved with removing and refitting the vertical stabiliser of a C-130 at Woodbourne. It is literally a few fairings and a half dozen quite large nuts and bolts. The coordination between the SNCO in charge and his team is next level impressive. The nuts and bolts are the easy part!
couple of tarps would have been quicker.
That looks like a very delicate and de-tailed operation.
It always amazes me to hear just a few bolts holds so many things on the plane. But then I guess that makes for quick replacements out in the field.
Wonderful! How is the Vildebeest coming along?
very bloody carefully would be my answer
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ONE YEAR AGO TODAY! On 19 February 2025 our C-130H (NZ) Hercules landed at Wigram.
The crew from No. 40 Squadron performed a touch and go before pulling off a successful landing to the delight of the thousands of spectators lining our temporary airfield. The Herc took 273.5m to stop.
NZ7001’s landing was a huge undertaking – which took months of planning to make sure it could be done safely on an airfield that closed about 30 years ago as an operational RNZAF base.
Since then we’ve been working hard to find the money to build a new exhibition space for our Hercules and our other national treasure, our P-3K2 Orion NZ4203.
You can learn all about the project here: airforcemuseum.co.nz/home-for-heroes
In the meantime, here’s the highlight reel from the day.
#rnzaf #christchurchcitycouncil #christchurchnz #rnzafpastandpresent #lockheed #c130Hercules ... See MoreSee Less
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Great birthday present for me 🤩
I was there. Took the day off on a hunch and was not disappointed. Very special thing to witness. Turned out to be a piece of cake to the gun RNZAF crew tasked with the job.
I appreciate that there was a lot of planning involved to achieve this remarkable feat, in the end the RNZAF made it look easy, just another day in the office 😀
I hope this footage & photo's taken of the landing becomes part of he display .
Still remember that, amazing day, though getting heat exhaustion was a bit of a downer
Great story now part of our history 👏
Amazing watching it land. Just stunning
If I hadn’t been there to see it myself, I’d think this video was AI!
Great day and enjoyable week during the open week
40 SQN 1983
I remember them arriving in NZ, flew to Fiji, Samoa and up and down the North Island in them as well as my last return from the ice.
I was there to see the landing amazing, history made, at the birth place of the Airforce where it all began 1916
This was impressive to watch happen!
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